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NRC approves TerraPower construction permit
Today, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that it has approved TerraPower’s construction permit application for Kemmerer Unit 1, the company’s first deployment of Natrium, its flagship sodium fast reactor.
This approval is a significant milestone on three fronts. For TerraPower, it represents another step forward in demonstrating its technology. For the Department of Energy, it reflects progress (despite delays) for the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP). For the NRC, it is the first approval granted to a commercial reactor in nearly a decade—and the first approval of a commercial non–light water reactor in more than 40 years.
Sung Jin Lee, Chan Y. Paik, Robert E. Henry, Michael Epstein, Martin G. Plys
Nuclear Technology | Volume 125 | Number 2 | February 1999 | Pages 182-196
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT99-A2941
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Modular Accident Analysis Program Version 4 (MAAP4) is an integrated severe accident analysis code that integrates a large number of phenomena and models into a single plant simulation. MAAP4 was used to predict the containment response to a simulated small-break loss-of-coolant accident steam blowdown followed by the release of a hydrogen/helium gas mixture (test E11.2) in the decommissioned German Heiss Dampf Reaktor facility. The test also incorporated external spray cooling of the steel dome near the end of the transient. In MAAP4, 29 nodes and 44 flow junctions were used to model the highly compartmentalized containment. The MAAP4 prediction of the containment pressure and gas temperature over the duration of the transient and the transient distribution of hydrogen/helium in the containment compartments are compared with experimental results. MAAP4 overpredicts the pressure and correctly predicts the thermal and hydrogen stratification that was observed in the E11.2 test.